What I'm Working On: Field Biology & Just Another Day at the Beach (with biting flies and mosquitoes)

Posted by Taylor Roberge

Summer for many people is a relaxing time of year when things start to slow down a bit. The bulk of my research, however, is condensed into a chaotic 3 month period when turtles are nesting and as it just so happens, the time of year when many of the biting insects are in greatest abundance. 

Currently, I’m spending much of my time in the lab either grading assignments from the Introductory Biology lab I teach, or working on in-lab experiments looking at how factors like fluctuating incubation temperature affect organisms, and in my case turtles, with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). 

Each week, my adviser and I make the four and a half hour journey from Birmingham to Dauphin Island. Here, we perform surveys and field experiments to better understand the ecology and biology of the Diamondback terrapin, a severely depleted species in Alabama. 

This week we drove down to do some radio tracking of female terrapins that we had released earlier in June, release a female that we had been captured the previous week, and pick up a new female that was captured a few days before we arrived. Summer can be hectic and even feel overwhelming at times, but I couldn’t see myself being happy doing anything else.

Writing for the Public: What’s All the Excitement About? Communicating Science to Non-Scientists

Posted by Lesley McCollum

I think every graduate student can agree that we spend a lot of time writing and talking about our research. What we may not agree on though, is whether we feel it takes up precious time for experiments, or if we prefer to get in some quality writing time. For some, our goals for writing science go beyond disseminating research for peers to communicating it to the public. As the brilliant scientist/science advocate, Carl Sagan, said: "There are at least two reasons why scientists have an obligation to explain what science is all about. One is naked self-interest… If we scientists increase the public excitement about science, there is a good chance of having more public supporters. The other is that it's tremendously exciting to communicate your own excitement to others." What’s all the excitement about then? For me, a doctoral researcher at the Alabama Brain Collection (ABC), I am excited by doing work that may one day improve treatment options for those suffering from mental illness. At the ABC, we promote and encourage research using brain tissue donated from individuals who had a desire to contribute to scientific advancement after their death. What inspires you to communicate science with others? Do you think you would ever want to write about science for the general media or a blog? If so, check out the science journalism resources that I've collected for our wiki, WritingInTheZone. UAB does not currently have a science writing program, but as the interest grows here, so will the opportunities. Stay tuned for announcements about how to get plugged in here on campus.